ENEMIES TO WOODLANDS AND NURSERIES, 57 



eastern aspect, as the roe-deer seek the warmer locaHties 

 during the colder portion of the year. They do not, how- 

 ever, like the larger kinds of deer, gnaw or strip the bark of 

 poles or saplings. 



The bucks select small, smooth saplings as fraying-stocks 

 when clearing their horns of the velvet during April, and 

 again when full of wanton mischief during the rutting 

 season in July and August ; the species for which they have 

 prefeience appear to be larch, silver fir, Weymouth 

 pine, aspen, lime, acacia, white alder, and mountain ash ; 

 and when these are planted as ornamental trees along the 

 edges of drives or green lanes running through the woods^ 

 they are exposed to special danger. 



For protection against roe-deer during the winter-time, 

 the fencing round nurseries and gardens requires to be at 

 least four and a half feet high. When once they have 

 managed to effect an entrance, either through any gap in the 

 fencing, or by leaping over it, they are very apt to acquire 

 the habit of returning to feed on the plants put out in the 

 nursery-beds. The erection of scarecrows is of little use in 

 this case, as the roe-deer soon get accustomed to them. 



The leading shoots of conifers can easily be protected 

 against roe-deer by a very simple and inexpensive method, 

 which consists in lying bits of newspaper, about four inches 

 square, round the buds at the top of the leading shoot ; if 

 this be done in autumn, the roll of paper will usually remain 

 attached like a collar at the base of the new shoot till the 

 following autumn. Or if the top shoots be coated with a 

 mixture of four parts fresh cowdung, one part coal-tar or 

 slacked lime, and just enough urine to make the whole 

 assume the consistency of thick oil-paint, which may be laid 

 on with a wooden spud, then neither roe-deer nor red-deer 

 will injure them. Whichever of these methods is adopted, 

 it, of course, has to be repeated each autumn until the plants 

 outgrow the danger of being bitten, and of thus losing their 

 leading shoots. 



